Precious Family
by winterune
Summary: Summer vacation is finally here and the Fujiwara couple plan a family trip for the four of them (Nyanko-sensei included) with an unexpected destination in mind.


**A/N:** this is my second entry for NatsumeWeek 2018 event in tumblr. Prompt for Day 2: Born Family/Found Family  
This is a direct continuation of the first fic in this series (title: May You Live Your Life to the Fullest) and there are some allusions to it.  
Another interesting prompt that I had a very fun time experimenting.

Thanks for reading^^ I hope you enjoy! Comments and reviews are much appreciated, thanks!

* * *

Nishimura sighed loudly as the four boys made their way out the school. "Finally, exams are over!"

"And summer is finally here!" Kitamoto added.

"Aaaagh! Come on! Let's go somewhere, the four of us! I'm not going to stay at home all summer and think about how I did on those exams!"

Tanuma chuckled at that. "How _did_ you do on those exams?"

"Possibly worse than last midterms," Nishimura commented despairingly.

"You're not alone, my friend," Kitamoto piped in, a consoling hand on his friend's shoulder. "You're not alone."

"Should we have a guys' night out?" Nishimura asked, perking slightly up when he began listing all the things they could do. "Or maybe we could splurge a bit and really go somewhere?"

"Camping trip might be fun, don't you think?" Kitamoto added.

"Hey, hey!" A new voice joined in and Sasada and Taki suddenly appeared on the other side of Tanuma. "Don't forget us girls if you're going anywhere."

"It's a _guys'_ night, Sasada," Nishimura said.

"Then we should make it a _friends'_ night," Sasada retorted.

"That camping trip sounds fun," Taki joined in.

"Right?" Kitamoto agreed.

Natsume watched his friends argue and banter. Sasada mentioned some exhibit in the city that sounded interesting but Kitamoto and Nishimura wanted to have an adventure around the local spots. Natsume didn't really have anywhere in mind. He'd go wherever his friends would go. And he couldn't help the smile and the laughter as he watched his friends try to decide what they should do and where they should go that summer.

Somewhere along the way, Natsume had stepped back and let the three of them work out their plans as Tanuma and Taki took their spots on either side of him. Natsume noticed how Nishimura and Kitamoto, who had been adamant to keep it a guys' night, had somehow gone along with Sasada, and the three of them were now turning to him and said simultaneously:

"Where do you want to go, Natsume?"

Taken surprise by their sudden outburst, Natsume could only say, "What?"

"A movie night?"

"Camping?"

"Museum?"

The three of them almost spoke at the same time that it was overwhelming for him. "I—I'll go wherever you guys decide," Natsume stammered, trying to grin his way through.

"No can do, Natsume-kun," Sasada said. "You get to choose where to go now."

"Wha—"

"Natori-san took our chance to throw you a surprise party," Nishimura added. "It's only natural if we go where you want to go."

"Uh—but…" In the end, Natori invited not just the Fujiwara but also his friends, because on their chance meeting with Tanuma, the boy mentioned they had planned a surprise party for Natsume on his birthday. The three of them were so determined, their full attention on Natsume, that it didn't seem they would take no for an answer. "W—well… why not do all of them?" he suggested in the end, and that made everyone pause.

Taki was the first to break the silence, exclaiming how nice the idea sounded. "We have a lot of time. We can do all your ideas," she said.

Tanuma agreed, and so did Kitamoto, who was murmuring and nodding to himself as he contemplated the suggestion, but both Nishimura and Sasada were frowning and glaring at each other. Though even if Nishimura and Sasada were somewhat forced to concede, now they were in another argument of which to do first. Natsume could only chuckle nervously at their insistence to ask for his opinion again and when he noticed they'd arrvived in his neighborhood, he waved them goodbye as a way to escape them.

 **~ O ~**

At dinner, the atmosphere was warm and blissful. Touko and Shigeru were talking and as always, Natsume would listen intently and offer a smile or a laugh or a comment here and there. It was a conversation about nothing and everything all at once and at times, Shigeru would smoothly shift the conversation to Natsume or Touko would offer Natsume a second helping of dinner.

When did it start—this feeling of contentment? This couple, who had done so much for him since before he even lived with them, who had offered a hand when no one else would… and he had given nothing in return. He noticed them—the little details, the little gestures—everything they did to make him feel at home. What had he done in his life to deserve such a loving couple as his guardians?

Natsume was helping Touko wash the dishes when Shigeru suddenly posed a question.

"Ah, right, Takashi," Shigeru asked from the dining table. "Do you have any plans for the summer?"

"My friends were planning some get-together thing but they haven't set the date yet," Natsume replied. He looked over his shoulder to his foster father, who was crouching by the table and adding yet more food into Nyanko-sensei's bowl—to which Sensei happily obliged to eat. "Did you need me for something, Shigeru-san?"

"Oh, it's nothing like that." Shigeru stood up and wiped his hands on a cloth. "If it's not too much, I was planning a trip for the three of us."

"What?" Natsume's hands paused for a moment before they resumed their work. A small shy smile caressed Natsume's lips. Touko-san giggled beside him and he hid his face in embarrassment.

"We can go to the city if you want," Shigeru went on, "or anywhere you like. And maybe, along the way, we'll visit your parents too."

 _Parents_.

At that, Natsume's hands stopped working altogether. The dishes he was supposed to dry were left neglected as his mind tried to comprehend the meaning behind Shigeru's words.

 _Visit your parents_.

A memory resurfaced. Of warm sunlight on a warm veranda, sitting on someone's lap, a smile and a man's voice above Natsume's head as he said his name.

 _Takashi._

A different memory, a distant past he had never known until a couple weeks ago when he met the youkai who had tried to save his mother. An image of the woman on her deathbed, the bundle she had held, and the first and last kiss she had given.

"I cleaned your room today, Takashi-kun," Touko added when Shigeru had stopped speaking. Her voice was soft, and quiet, and calming. "And I saw the photos." Natsume stiffened at that. His childhood photos—he'd been looking at them last night and he had probably forgotten to put them back in the box. "I'm sorry for looking at them without permission, but they were lying there on the floor so I picked them up."

From the corner of his eyes, Natsume noticed Touko had also paused washing a glass, a distant look in her eyes and a wistful smile on her lips.

"They must have been lovely people." A murmur that was loud enough in the silence.

A lump formed in his throat and he quickly looked away. "Thank you, Shigeru-san, but you don't have to," he said instead, quiet and pensive.

Shigeru chuckled under his breath. "It's not like that, Takashi," he said. Natsume heard his approaching footsteps as Shigeru went over to his other side. Touko was already resuming washing the glass and the plates and her silent gestures urged Natsume to resume his work, even as his mind was still not wholly in the present. "It isn't a case of whether we have to or not," Shigeru went on. "We _want_ to."

Without turning around, Natsume could already see the smile forming on his guardian's face. "Besides, we have never had a trip together, have we?" Shigeru smiled at him. "What do you say, Takashi?"

A part of him was hesitant and reluctant, trying to come up with reasons why they shouldn't go. It was a piece of his past he had never dared to think about, until that day he went to visit his old house. And still, after requiring another fragment of a memory in the form of a photograph from a youkai who had claimed to be his grandmother's guardian, Natsume couldn't bring himself to wonder about that missing page—the people his relatives had been unwilling to tell.

But Natsume caught himself—caught himself from saying anything out loud. He never knew where they buried them. He never dared, and never cared, to ask. Some part of him had always believed none of them would tell him anyway. Had his father ever brought him to his mother's grave? If he had, that memory was already gone from his conscious mind.

So Natsume nodded, because this was a chance to finally put a closure on everything.

 **~ O ~**

They went on the first weekend of summer vacation. Natsume had told Tanuma that he had some family business to take care of. The boy later relayed the message to everyone and they all decided to postpone any kinds of plan until Natsume got back.

The day before their departure, Shigure called one of Natsume's relatives—Tachibana-san, the one who had taken care of Natsume's family's house before. They were a bit surprised at Shigure's sudden call, and even more surprised at his inquiry. It took a while, but they gave him the address of the cemetery where Natsume's parents lay.

In all honesty, Natsume was surprised to know they had the address. Maybe a part of him did believe these people didn't care enough to know where they put their relative to rest. Natsume didn't put it against them, though. He was older now, and he understood things he didn't understand when he was a kid. They were only afraid of the things they could not see or even understand.

He had never thought much about it—the fear and trauma. It was there, but it had been a day-to-day thing that it had become a part of his life before he knew it. That is, until he met the Fujiwaras and he realized how it felt to want to belong somewhere. The fear that came with it when he thought about what his foster parents would think if they knew the truth. And even though it had hurt him deeply, Natsume understood why his relatives had acted the way they had.

So before Shigure ended the call, though, Natsume stopped him. Shigeru gave him the phone at his request and Natsume, fighting back the silent anxiety that was building in his heart, spoke and thanked Tachibana-san for everything he had done and for keeping note of where his parents were now.

There was a question he wanted to ask—a question regarding Reiko—but he guessed his uncle probably would just shrug and say he didn't know so Natsume kept quiet and bid his relative goodbye.

 **~ O ~**

Their trip consisted of visiting Natsume's hometown and a hot spring resort near the mountains. Shigeru and Touko had planned the entire first day walking through the streets of Natsume's childhood. They didn't have any specific destination in mind, just that by the afternoon, they would have to have visited the cemetery and be on their way to their next destination. They asked Natsume to take them to the schools he had attended, the paths he had taken. Natsume's memories of those times were slightly hazy so in the end he couldn't really retrace the steps he'd taken.

He didn't remember much about them anyway, except for those moments where his schoolmates would call him out for being a liar. Not even the teachers had been helpful. Everyone just mostly stayed away from him. He did manage to go to this one school—stumbling upon it by accident when he was trying to remember his way—but standing before it again with Shigeru and Touko on either side of him and Nyanko-sensei ahead of him, it brought a different view to his mind. Shigeru and Touko never pried very deep, but Natsume found that he wanted to tell them. It surprised him that these memories didn't hurt as much as it had before.

They went to the busier part of town and had lunch at a restaurant Natsume remembered he had wanted to enter when he was a kid but had been too afraid to say so. It was a passing comment he offered when they passed it and in an instant Touko decided they would have their lunch there.

They walked by the riverbank afterwards. Touko commented on how pretty the town was and Natsume took a step back to let her have a quiet moment together with her husband as he walked ahead with Nyanko-sensei. Sensei didn't offer much comments either. He'd gone there with him before and he never really cared about the scenery. A delicious lunch had been enough to sate him.

Natsume noticed the Fujiwara couple had stopped on their tracks, so he paused too and looked over the river. It wasn't an entirely wide river. In fact, it seemed narrower than it had been when he lived in this area years ago.

Nyanko-sensei crouched beside him and stood in silence for some time.

A gentle gust of wind blew across the water. Natsume had the sudden urge to fish the photographs he'd brought with him from an inner pocket in his bag. The picture of his parents, smiling at the camera; and the picture of himself, younger, probably before his father died. A toddler of three- or four-year-old sitting on a veranda dyed in the orange light of the setting sun. He remembered that veranda now. Among his hazy memory of the past, he remembered sitting on someone's lap on a veranda overlooking a small, abandoned garden. That was probably where the picture was taken.

"Are you sure you won't call her?" Nyanko-sensei asked.

Natsume didn't answer immediately. He let the question sink in as he stared at both photographs. The question was still there—the question regarding his grandmother. He wanted to know what happened to her, where her grave was, and Sensei was implying the white-haired youkai they'd met at the inn before would probably know—something Natsume had also thought himself. However...

"I'm sure, Sensei," he replied, a small smile on his face. "I want to meet my parents first. I want them to meet Shigeru-san and Touko-san."

Nyanko-sensei stared at him for a while longer before he grunted and looked across the water. "Hmph! I'll never understand humans."

Natsume chuckled. There would come a time for him to find Reiko-san's resting place, and a time where he would be able to tell Shigeru-san and Touko-san everything. After all, these people were his precious family, both the ones who were gone and the ones who were here.

 **~ O ~**

They found the cemetery. It was a decent one. Trees lined the entrance, and Natsume wondered how they would look in spring, when there might be beautiful sakura, or autumn, when the leaves would turn red and orange and brown. Even Shigeru commented quietly how nice the place was.

They approached the cemetery caretaker and located the grave for the Natsume family. It was a simple grave with both of Natsume's parents' names on it, and it was quite evident none of the relatives ever cared to clean it, if they ever came at all. Shigeru and Touko set to work, pulling out the weeds and pouring water over the stone. Natsume didn't miss a beat as he crouched down and helped them.

It felt unreal. Even as Natsume stood between Shigeru and Touko, having put the flowers and incense in the stands before the gravestone and were now standing silently in prayer, it still felt surreal. After years of trying to live by himself when no one wanted him, he was here. Really here. Standing before the ashes of his parents.

 _Takashi…_ His father had once said his name.

 _I love you…_ His mother had whispered to him as her life slipped away.

Something deep inside him ached, and despite trying to hold it in, the tears rolled down one by one. His hands shook and he shut his eyes and hung his head and sobbed. Natsume sobbed and sobbed, even as his knees failed him and he fell to the ground.

Fourteen years, was it? Fourteen years since he last saw his father, and finally he was here.

He felt strong, warm, and gentle hands on his back—felt an arm drape over his shoulders—as Shigeru and Touko crouched on either side of him and let him cry. Nyanko-sensei had come closer and sat by his knees—a reassuring warmth that would never go away. And with them beside him, he found his strength.

"Mom… Dad..." His voice shook, but he forced himself to speak. "These are Touko-san and Shigeru-san. They took me in and I've been happy living with them. They're my new family."

Touko's body shook slightly against him as silent tears rolled down her face and Shigeru gave his shoulder a squeeze.

"Mom… Dad…" Natsume's lips stretched into a content smile, pushing through the sadness and tears, as he spoke. "I'm home."

 **~ END ~**


End file.
